At The Reel Bits, we don’t just post trailers, we review them too. Check out our thoughts after viewing the teaser trailer below.

Trailer Talk:

Staying in the Middle East after the Oscar-winning success of The Hurt Locker, the teaser trailer for Zero Dark Thirty opens with a custom studio logo, which is one of our favourite things in the world. Blacking out the Columbia Pictures logo with the marker of censorship, we know that this is going for a seedy and sinister spy vibe.

The black marker serves as a motif throughout the trailer, connecting the various strands that lead to the mysterious target. That subject is revealed, of course, to be the previously elusive Osama Bin Laden. In case the silhouettes weren’t a dead giveaway, the repeated speech of “When was the last time you saw Bin Laden?” is probably going to tip you off.

“Witness the greatest manhunt in history” was clearly written by a marketing department that has neither seen The Fugitive or the last season of The Bachelorette, but the grittier and freewheeling camera is indicative that this is going to be more Jason Bourne than Richard Kimble. What we really think is that this is pretty promising and we’d like to see more, but we wouldn’t be surprised if “they” censor that. Bastards, aren’t they?

The bottom line is that this teaser trailer does what it is supposed to do: teases a bigger story that is destined for Oscar nods next year.